The aim of this article is to examine the Latin learning materials, focusing on the case of Egyptian Greek speakers learning Latin. In order to reconstruct the picture of a Latin learning experience by Greeks, the evidence of the papyri makes Egypt a privileged case study. Given that the vast majority of the extant texts on papyrus survive from Egypt (for climatic reasons), our knowledge of the Latin learning process is strictly dependent on what that process was in the Egyptian context. Ancient papyri bear direct and concrete witness to the everyday life of the past, and they preserve the texts used by the ancient students to learn Latin. Therefore, they help to answer questions such as who learned Latin in Egypt, and why and how.

The materials on papyrus, addressing the acquisition of Latin, cover the entire period of Roman rule in Egypt,¹ from 30 BC to AD 641, during which Egypt became a key Roman province. Yet, the bulk of these texts date from the 4th century, on when the learning of Latin became more widespread.² In general, Egypt has provided a huge quantity of educational material that allows us to gather information on the everyday practice of teaching and learning in the Egyptian chora.³ Some of the papyri found in Egypt that are entirely written in Latin could have belonged to Latin native speakers that were living in the province as members of the Roman elite.⁴ However, a reliable means to identify Latin learning materials used by Greek-speaking citizens, is the presence of a translation of the Latin passages into Greek, or at least of Greek transliterations as well as Greek explanations and glosses.

Latin learning materials – mostly grammatical works and glossaries – have also reached us via the medieval manuscript tradition.⁵ Yet, papyri attest to learning stages and modalities such as the use of transliterated texts and preliminary approaches to alphabet learning, which have no parallel in other sources. As Dickey (2016) states:

During the Roman Empire, Latin was learned not only by Roman children who were taught by their own parents, by pedagogi or at school, but also by adults who learned it as a foreign language. Latin spread rapidly among the populations conquered by Roman forces in the various parts of the growing empire. Yet, whereas in the western empire Latin became the main language, in the pars Orientis of the Empire, Greek remained the chief language.⁶ In Roman Egypt, the Latin-Greek language contact produced evident bilingual results, especially in milieus such as the army, the civil administration and the judiciary in which Latin was the language of the new ruling power. Papyri from Roman and Byzantine Egypt provide invaluable insights into this phenomenon.⁷ In the complex contacts and interactions between Greek and Latin, it seems more appropriate to talk of ‘Latin in Egypt’ rather than ‘Latin of Egypt’ (cf. Adams 2004:527–528; Scappaticcio 2015:14).

The experience of Latin as a second language has several affinities with ours today, as ancient learners had to study declensions and conjugations, use dictionaries, memorise vocabulary and read texts. On the other hand, even if they struggled with the Roman alphabet, they were accustomed to the morphological concepts of gender and declension (cf. Dickey 2016:1). In addition to this, their learning would, to some extent, be immersive, for they would hear some Latin in their context.

It is likely that in Roman Egypt, the Latin learning practice took place outside the formal educational environment of the school. What we know of this practice is inferred exclusively from the materials on papyrus. There was a substantial difference between Romans learning Greek and Greek speakers learning Latin: the former did it as school children, the latter did not. The reason for this different attitude towards the learning of a second language was basically a matter of language prestige. Knowledge of Greek was crucial in the curriculum studiorum of a well-educated Roman, hence Roman parents ensured that their children learned it from the early years: during the empire all elite children had to learn Greek at school, but literate Romans still knew Greek in the Byzantine period. The Romans had a reverent attitude towards Greek language, literature and culture. In contrast, Greek speakers learned Latin as young adults when they needed to know Latin while training for certain professions (cf. Cribiore 2007:59–60; Dickey 2016:3; Rochette 1997:69–83, 260). In general, the Greeks were not particularly interested in Roman literature and culture, and considered Greek superior to any other language.

Papyri attest to the various phases through which Greek speakers passed while learning Latin in Egypt, ranging from an elementary to an advanced level. They also shed light on the typologies of texts that were used.⁸ Materials for the early stages of learning, include the Latin alphabet. It was often accompanied by the equivalents of Greek letters or the names of Latin letters in Greek.⁹ Then, transliterated texts aimed at acquiring oral proficiency.¹⁰ Finally, texts easy to be read by beginners were usually divided into two narrow columns: the first in Latin, the second occupied by a line by line Greek translation. This enabled the learner to understand the meaning of both the individual words and the whole sentence. These bilingual texts find a parallel in modern interlinear and facing-page translations (cf. Dickey 2015b:807–821; 2016:4). Many of them belong to the category of the colloquia, because their contents were mostly penned in dialogic form.¹¹ The colloquia were characterised by simple syntax, short sentences and basic everyday vocabulary, and facilitated learning common vocabulary in context. It is possible that the learners memorised extracts in Latin, supporting their understanding of the text by means of the Greek translation, and then recited the sections to their teacher. Ancient learners also needed grammar, which were conventionally written in the target language regardless the learner’s native language.¹² More advanced levels of instruction could perhaps entail prose composition such as rewriting extracts of authors or translating Greek passages into Latin, but we have almost no evidence of such exercises.¹³ Students could occasionally learn Latin well enough to challenge themselves and successfully read Latin texts without the Greek translation (cf. Dickey 2015a:48; 2016:5). In these cases, while studying the monolingual texts, they used to add glosses on, or translations of the difficult words in the margins or in the interlinear spaces. To look up the meanings of the words, they made abundant use of lexica and glossaries with the Latin often transliterated into Greek: some of these were thematic glossaries in form of classified wordlists, while others were arranged in alphabetical order.¹⁴ Bilingual glossaries, presenting the Greek equivalent of the Latin words, were also popular in Egypt: they belong to a bilingual category of text that will result in the medieval tradition of the Hermeneumata.¹⁵

The very first Latin literary works read by ancient learners were the early books of Virgil’s Aeneid for poetry and Cicero’s Catilinarian orations for prose.¹⁶ Several copies of these texts survive in bilingual format, and this means that they were already used by beginners. Latin literature read in Egypt for didactic purposes also encompasses other authors: Juvenal, Terence, Livy, Seneca, Lucan and Sallust.¹⁷ When these texts do not offer a Greek translation, but just Greek glosses or notes, this points to a higher stage of learning Latin.

Although these papyri show that Greek speakers made also use of Latin authors to learn the language, they did not have the aim of appreciating Roman literature for its own sake: their purpose was primarily practical (cf. Cribiore 2007:62; Dickey 2015a:43; Fournet 2009:428; Gaebel 1969–1970:291; Internullo 2011–2012:32–33; Rochette 1997:174–177, 196; Sánchez-Ostiz 2013:152; Scappaticcio 2015:13). The exercise of a given profession, such as an administrative position in the imperial bureaucracy and the practice of law (see infra), was the main reason to learn Latin in Egypt. As Brashear (1981) points out:

The Roman army was another influential environment in which people learned Latin for practical aims (cf. Adams 2004:617–623; Dickey 2015a:31; 2016:2, 116). Latin was the official language of the army. Nevertheless, ‘Latin was rarely obligatory’ and ‘many units functioned mainly in Greek’, even if ‘forms of bilingualism or a passive knowledge of Latin must have been widespread’ with degrees of competence ranging from rudimentary knowledge to colloquial fluency as Adams (2004:617–618) concludes, refining the view that foreign recruits had to learn Latin as a second language. Papyri provide explicit evidence of the acquisition of Latin in the army by Greek-speaking soldiers, although ‘the aim of such learning and instruction was not to enforce the use of Latin in all circumstances’ (Adams 2004:618). A clear example of this is a glossary of military terminology preserved by a papyrus from the 3rd or 4th century, P.Strasb. inv. G 1173 (MP3 2134.61, LDAB 9218), having the Greek terms in the left column and the Latin equivalent transliterated into Greek script in the right column (ll. 24–40) (cf. Dickey 2016:124–125; Kramer 2001:65–76, no. 6). Interestingly, besides words perfectly transliterated like καστρα (l. 26, Lat. castra), μιλ[ιτι]α (l. 25, Lat. militia), ι̣μπερατωρ (l. 29, Lat. imperator) and μιλιτης (l. 26, Lat. milites), it presents the unusual spelling mistake φρενεκτυς (lege πρεφεκτους) κα[στ]ρωρου[µ] (l. 31, Lat. praefectus castrorum), the erratic use of simple iota or the diphthong epsilon iota to represent Latin i (see l. 30 τριβουνους μελιτου̣μ for tribunus militum, but ll. 39–40 εκουειτης | σιγνιφερει for equites and signiferi), and the form λεγιων that does not reflect the transliteration of the nominative legio, but rather λεγιών – a borrowing adapted to the Greek morphological system that has several attestations in papyri from the Roman Egypt.

Greek speakers could achieve either an active or a passive competence in Latin. If their profession required it, they could likely develop enough skills to write in decent Latin. However, the fact that there is only scanty evidence of composition exercises, seems to suggest that they were more interested in oral proficiency: the learning process was chiefly intended to read, to acquire or refine the pronunciation abilities, or even to speak without ever knowing the alphabet.¹⁸ A clue to this oral interest is represented by the high number of transliterated texts as well as by the presence of diacritics to assure correct pronunciation. The addition of learning aids, such as macrons, accents and diaereses, proves that Greek speakers could have difficulties with Latin quantities. Greeks distinguished long and short vowels with different letters (η and ε, ω and ο). The fact that Latin had the same letters for different quantities, could appear confusing. Therefore, macrons were sometimes marked over long vowels, mostly long e and o: this indicates that the text was meant to be read aloud (cf. Cribiore 2007:61; Dickey 2015a:35, 46, 48; 2016:5; Scappaticcio 2015:13). Another potentially confusing aspect of Latin language could be the letter h, as it is demonstrated by a papyrus from the 5th or 6th century from Oxyrhynchus, P.Oxy. X 1315 descr. (MP3 3013, LDAB 4163) (cf. Dickey 2016:119; Kramer 2001:40–44, no. 2; Scappaticcio 2015:72). It is a learner’s exercise providing the Latin alphabet in both capital and lower-case forms with the Greek equivalent on some of the Latin letters. In correspondence with the Latin h the learners wrote η; thus making the mistake of equating a Latin consonant with a Greek vowel.

Among the Latin learning materials, the remainder of this article will focus on legal texts on papyrus to highlight the practical advantages of learning Latin in Roman Egypt.

In the Roman Empire, all legal procedures were conducted in Latin, but this rule became flexible in those provinces, such as Egypt, where Greek remained the chief spoken language.¹⁹ Nevertheless, within the multilingual environment of Roman Egypt, Latin developed as a language of power and law. Especially from the 4th century on, some command of Latin became recommended to enter the legal profession, and students of law had to gain at least a smattering of Latin literacy. As Cribiore (2007) explains:

Then, as now, a person dealing with legal issues or undertaking a legal education gave particular attention to acquiring the technical vocabulary of the discipline.²⁰ Therefore, special attention will be paid to texts on papyrus that might have served as a support to understand and acquire legal technical terminology. Some passages of two Ciceronian papyri, P.Ryl. I 61 and III 477, are particularly significant in this regard. As already mentioned, Cicero was one of the privileged Latin writers in education and the most recent list of the Ciceronian papyri from Egypt, enumerates 10 records.²¹ At least some of them were designed for Greek speakers imperfectly acquainted with Latin or were written by Greek scribes as their bilingual nature demonstrates as well as the influence of the Greek ductus on the Latin handwriting.²² Both P.Ryl. I 61 and III 477 are fragments of papyrus codices written in half-uncial script and date back to the 5th century. Therefore, they are concrete testimonies of the renewed interest in learning Latin from the 4th century on.

P.Ryl. I 61 (MP3 2923, LDAB 554) preserves parts of In Catilinam 2.14–15. Its bilingual format and its paleographical indications suggest that this manuscript was intended to be used by a Greek speaker probably as a school text (see Figure 1). The same hand wrote both the Latin and the Greek, using a brown ink typical of the Byzantine period, and the shape of the Latin letters displays the interference of the Greek script.²³ Also the marks of long quantities in l. 8 points to the use by a Greek speaker. The left column is occupied by the Latin words arranged in small groups or singly, whereas the parallel column offers a mechanical Greek translation verbum pro verbo: a means ‘of simplifying the learning process’ by providing a ‘learning aid’ (Gaebel 1969–1970:311). The papyrus has thus the form of a Greek wordlist to Cicero’s text.²⁴ This structure is shared by three other papyri containing passages from the Catilinarians.²⁵ Given the judicial nature of the Catilinarians, it is highly likely that Greeks, concerned with Roman law, such as law students, could have used these manuscripts to get acquainted with Latin legal discourse and vocabulary. The works of Cicero could thus have been useful to reach a better understanding of Roman law itself. The connection between these materials and the legal education system is also strengthened by several paleographical similarities between these didactic texts and the juridical codices produced in the pars Orientis of the Empire (cf. De Nonno 2009:249–278; Internullo 2011–2012:34; Radiciotti 2010:94). All these Ciceronian bilingual wordlists date back to the same timespan (late IV-V century). Thanks to the emperor, Theodosius II, in particular, who promoted the compilation of the law code known as Codex Theodosianus, it corresponds to the period during which the study of Latin in the eastern provinces contributed to ‘a Greek Roman Empire’, according to the definition given by Millar (2006:91–93).²⁶

To illustrate the format and the arrangement of the text, ll. 1–17 of the manuscript are given in Box 1.²⁷ The Latin and Greek texts are supplied according to the most recent edition of the papyrus (Hunt 1911:193–194; Internullo 2011–2012:79–94).

The other Ciceronian papyrus, P.Ryl. III 477 (MP3 2919, LDAB 558),²⁸ is a bifolium preserving part of the sections 35–37 and 44–46 of the Divinatio in Q. Caecilium, and represents one of the most significant papyrological contributions to the text of the speeches In Verrem.²⁹ It is not a wordlist such as in the previous case, but a standard text with diacritical marks, occasional punctuation and many marginalia in Latin and Greek. The hands of five different scribes can be identified. The scribes or annotators squeezed a considerable bulk of material in the margins. Most of the Greek annotations consist of adaptations or translations of the Latin text, but what makes this papyrus remarkably noteworthy is a Greek scholium about the Roman juridical term indicium, appearing in section 34, line 5 of the Ciceronian text (si tibi indicium postulas dari quod tecum una fecerit, concedo, si id lege permittitur, ‘if you demand to be allowed to give information regarding the crimes which [scil. Verres] has committed together with you, I have no objection, if it is allowed by the law’). This note (c), following two brief notes in Latin (a, b), stands out among surviving marginal annotations on papyrus for its content and unparalleled length (see McNamee 2007:80–81). The scholium occupies a considerable portion of the outer edge of Fol. 1 recto (see Figure 2)³⁰ and sneaks into the bottom margin. It comments upon the meaning of this legal term by providing unprecedented details. After starting with an explanation of the rules related to the status of informers, it goes on paraphrasing and expanding Cicero’s contents (Box 2).

Like in the previous case, the nature of this manuscript, and in particular, the length and the content of this annotation suggest that the papyrus was intended for a native Greek speaker interested in legal issues. It is possible that its owner used this copy of heavily annotated Ciceronian text as a support to the comprehension of Roman law and the acquisition of its technical terminology. To quote McNamee’s words (2007):